


Six Months, Three Weeks

by MeredithBrody



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Expanse AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 07:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erika gets a call telling her that Jonathan died in the Expanse, and has to work through her feelings for him, and accept that she won't be able.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Months, Three Weeks

It had been 6 months, 3 weeks, 4 days and 14 hours since he’d called her. 6 months since she’d last heard his voice, 6 months since he’d last been safe. Relatively safe at least. They’d sent messages, almost weekly. His letters to her were piggybacked on the back of his reports, and she had enjoyed the challenge she had to send them back.

2 weeks, 2 days and 3 hours. That was how long it had last been since she’d last received a letter. 2 weeks and 2 days since anything had been heard from Enterprise. She knew that things in the Expanse changed quickly, and so she wasn’t worried. OK. Maybe she was a little worried. 4 years earlier they’d gone their separate ways, and while they had remained somewhat in contact, through old friends, and she’d seen him once, briefly, when Enterprise and Republic had both been recalled. But over the last four years they’d kept their distance.

It had hurt her, initially, to lose a friend she’d been that close too for so long before they had begun “dating” in the conventional term, and even while they’d been apart she’d thought of him often. For 14 years he had been her intellectual equal, her best friend and the only man she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. That was something she was going to have to tell him when they next spoke.

She was distracted from her thoughts by the sounding of the external communications system. Columbia’s internal system wasn’t yet in operating, so she flipped open the communicator she had in her pocket and listened to the hail. “Captain, there is a call from command for you.”

“Route it up to my office on Jupiter. I’ll be there in a minute.” She grinned, all but jogging back through the station up to her office, she smiled at the pictures she had there before she opened the communications terminal to the saddened face of Admiral Forrest. Her face immediately fell. She knew that nothing good was going to be delivered with that face. “Admiral?”

“I have bad news, Erika.” Forrest’s face fell further, and settled into a compassionate frown. Somehow she knew what he was going to say, and she was already mentally preparing herself for the news. “We heard from Enterprise. Jon was killed in an attack three days ago.”

“Are you- Are you sure?” She asked, she just needed to know, she needed to hear that there was a possibility he was wrong, that Jonathan may still be alive. She reached up and wiped her eyes, ignoring the tears that were welling up in them. She took a deep breath and then looked back to Forrest. “There is no chance?”

“As sure as we can be. He has it in his file that he’d like you to be the one to speak to notify his mother?” Forrest asked, and Erika was taken back to that call 6 months ago. That call where she had promised that if Jon didn’t make it back, she’d be the one to tell his mom, despite the fact she and his mother had never really seen eye to eye hadn’t bothered him. He’d wanted her, and that had been enough for her to say yes.

She nodded, then took a breath again, trying to take control of her emotions all over again. “Yeah, he made me promise him that.” She stopped to think, knowing that she needed to take someone with her, and that they needed to have known Jon too. There was only one person alive she trusted to go along with her, and not judge her for being affected by this. “I’ll take Lieutenant Fletcher with me. She’s known him a long time. We’ll go this evening.”

“Take a moment for yourself, Erika. I’ll see you for a debriefing on Wednesday.” Forrest said, and Erika nodded, then dropped her chin to her chest, not even realising that Forrest had ended the call. She let her tears fall for a few minutes before she picked up the picture of Jon she kept on her desk, running her fingers over his photographic form and saying a silent prayer of thanks for knowing him.

As soon as she had taken control again, she pulled out the dress uniform she had in a closet on one side of her office and changed as quickly as she could. If she got this over with, she could come home to grieve herself. She walked through the officers pen and spotted her quarry, almost certain that Veronica would agree.

“Veronica, come with me.” She shouted, and stepped out into the hallway, making it obvious that what she had to say wasn’t for everyone, and she was certain that her dress blues weren’t going to have gone unnoticed.

“What is it?” Veronica asked as she met Erika out in the corridor, it was obvious that Veronica had figured out that something serious had happened, but whether she realised the scope of it she asn’ sure.

“Find your dress blues, we have a notification to deliver.”

“What?” Veronica asked, and now Erika saw the recognition in her friends’ expression.

“Jonathan died in the Expanse. He made me promise to tell his mother. I’m taking you with me so I can have a breakdown afterwards with someone I trust. The shuttle leaves in an hour” She delivered that and then turned away as quickly as she could. She needed to escape and think for a moment before she went to see Sally Archer.

They had both known that Starfleet would probably tear them apart in the end, but there were so many things they’d both wanted that Jonathan would now never see. She knew that there was a strange fact, that in less than 5 years since it was realised, only 2 members of the 5 NX team were alive, and with the current situation, she doubted they would both be alive in another year. How was that fair?

She’d just been thinking about Jonathan, about the fact she thought maybe it was time to let him back in, and in her mind she began mentally cursing any god that thought this was fair. To bring him back into her life and then snatch him away at the last second, before they really had a chance to figure anything out. Before she ever had a chance to tell him that she forgave him for everything that had happened between them, and that she didn’t blame him for what happened, with her, with their baby. None of it had been his fault and 4 years earlier she had insinuated it was. There was a number she would now always be adding to. It had been 6 months, 3 weeks, 4 days and 15 hours since she had last spoken to him, and she would remember that call forever.


End file.
